Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Preview – Rising Through The Ranks

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s public demo gave players a chance to experience a more general idea of what this fast-paced action game offers, but Koei Tecmo recently gave us the chance to go deeper and play through the first two chapters in Wo Long in full. I’m starting to understand that developer Team Ninja is aiming for a wider swath of players with Wo Long as opposed to its Nioh titles, which are some of the most demanding in games. While Wo Long still features that trademark From Software-inspired challenge, it also features a unique system that allows you to change an enemy’s difficulty in real-time, making it much more approachable. 

Wo Long has a unique morale system at its core. This increases when enemies are defeated, and drops when there is damage. You can lose your full rank if you take enough damage. It is possible to restore morale by defeating your enemy. I find this approach very similar to collecting souls after death in Dark Souls.  

Chapter 2: A mini-boss of morale rank 20 killed me, while my own morale stood at 17. The higher an enemy’s morale, the harder it is to defeat, but uniquely, defeating enemies in the immediate surrounding can often lower an enemy’s rank. Even though this was the section about morale rank 13, I ended it by beating each enemy along the way to my mini-boss. What’s interesting here is the push and pull between the urge to quickly rush to this mini-boss at a lower rank to obtain the morale and experience I lost, and the desire to take it slow, build my morale by defeating enemies along the way, and challenge the boss with higher morale. To do this I run the risk of being killed by one of my dozen enemies. My experience and morale are important to me. I also enjoy the fact that my combat strength can be increased by my morale. 

It feels almost like there is a difficulty scaling built into the system. If I’m craving more challenge, I can confront a boss with a higher morale rank. If I’m struggling to defeat it, I can farm smaller enemies and build up my morale to be the same as the boss’.  

The morale system is so far Wo Long’s highlight. This adds an entirely new dimension to the action-packed Dark Souls series. As From Software continues to perfect its take on this formula, I like seeing developers put their own mark on it, and that’s what Team Ninja is doing again with Wo Long. 

But that’s not the only aspect of Wo Long that impressed me; its combat is slick, fast-paced, and stressful in the best way, even when up against standard mob enemies (which can take you out with ease if you miss just one deflect, block, or dodge). It’s the first game to give me the same thrill of parrying and evading since From Software’s Sekiro, and I don’t think I can praise Wo Long any higher than that. 

Wo Long’s actions take precedence, but Wo Long’s story and characters are something that is surprising. Gone are the obscure “it’s there if you look for it” narrative aspects typically seen in the genre. Wo Long instead presents the story through hype-inducing cutscenes with characters and personalities that are in your face. The storytelling seems to be coming to you rather than it to them. Perhaps this is the result of playing through the game’s opening, but I’m hoping Wo Long continues to roll out its narrative as it did in these first two sections. Fortunately, I don’t have to wait much longer to find out.